A - Immortal Sea

traveled with them for nine hundred miles, crammed into the back of the CRV with Zack‟s Xbox, Emily‟s American Girl doll,

and Liz‟s laptop—items too precious, too necessary to living, to trust to a stranger‟s care.

“We will,” she promised. “Just as soon as I . . .”

“Finish,” Emily said for her and grinned.

Liz smiled back, love and guilt weighting her chest, tightening her throat. The whole point of this move was to spend more

time with her children.

Today was Sunday, her first official day off. The clinic was closed today. Of course, as the island‟s new and only doctor,

she was still on call. In an emergency—fish hooks, boating accidents, strokes, earaches—she was all that stood between the

residents of World‟s End and a hasty trip to the hospital on the mainland.

But today was for Zack and Emily.

Liz glanced at the clock. Almost noon. At home in North Carolina, fifteen-year-old Zachary rarely emerged from his room

before lunchtime. Yet ever since their arrival on World‟s End, he‟d roused himself from bed to watch Emily while Liz saw her

morning patients. His behavior was hardly extraordinary on World‟s End, where other boys his age got up at dawn to haul

lobster traps.

But the change gave Liz hope. Maybe this move was just what her son needed.

“Don‟t you want to wait for your brother?” she asked.

Emily fiddled with Molly‟s braids, so different from her own halo of soft, dark curls. The doll‟s pale, stiff complexion

contrasted sharply against Emily‟s warm, honey-colored skin. But they were dressed alike for the beach in bathing suits, flipflops, and shorts. “Zack doesn‟t like the beach.”

“Of course he does,” Liz said automatically and then stopped.

When he was a little boy, Zack had loved the water. From the time he could hold a pole until Ben‟s illness four years ago,

their annual fishing trip to the pier at Holden Beach had been the highlight of Zack‟s summers. Now he wouldn‟t swim,

wouldn‟t even walk barefoot on the beach, and wore big, black, laced-up combat boots all the time. He had spent the ferry ride

from Rockland buried below deck, ears plugged and eyes glued to his iTouch. Liz didn‟t know what her son liked anymore.

What he wanted. What he was doing all those hours alone in his room.

“Why don‟t you grab a sweatshirt,” she suggested. “We‟ll take our walk now, and when Zack gets up, I‟ll make us all some

pancakes.”

“Cool.” Emily scrambled off the couch and bolted for the hall as if afraid her mother would change her mind. Her flip-flops

slapped up the stairs.

Liz smiled and reached for the bottom of the box.

Ah.

Her hand froze.

Her heart clenched.

She recognized the swaddled lump at once by the weight, the feel of it in her hand. Her doves. Ben‟s doves. She lifted the

package carefully from the carton. With trembling fingers, she pulled at the bubble wrap to expose the heavy sculpture: two

birds blown of lead crystal, joined at the base and their beaks, Ben‟s gift to her on their first wedding anniversary, an

unexpected and utterly romantic gesture from her normally prosaic husband. “ One heart, ” he had written on the card.

Sudden, hot tears flooded her eyes.

Bernardo Rodriguez had been dead three years. Long enough for his scent to fade from his pillows and their closet, long

enough for her grief and rage to recede to a faint throbbing like an aching tooth.

She stroked a finger along the smooth crystal breast of a dove. They nestled together in their plastic wrapping, their

perfection undimmed by time. Beautiful. Complete. Whole.

Emily clattered on the stairs. “Hey, Mom.”

Liz blinked. She didn‟t want her daughter to catch her crying. Not now. Not here, where they were making a fresh start.

She swiped at her eyes, reaching blindly to set the doves on the mantle. The crystal slipped through her fingers.

Crash.

Splinters shimmered on the cold stone hearth. The heavy base rolled on its side.

Oh, God. Oh, no.

“Mom?”

Liz fell to her knees on the carpet, her mouth opening in a silent cry. Not broken, please, not . . .

Cracked.

Upstairs, a door creaked. Footsteps shuffled in the hall.

Zack‟s voice, rough with sleep and adolescence, drifted down. “What happened?”

Liz lifted the doves from the hearth, ignoring the glittering dust of tiny shards. The fall had knocked off a chunk of tail, a

corner of the base. A crack ran through the crystal‟s heart like a flaw in ice.

“Shit,” Emily said in a small, awed voice, and Liz couldn‟t even find the words to correct her.

Her children stood in the door to the living room. Zack towered at his sister‟s back, a black T-shirt hanging off his broad,

bony shoulders, his dull black hair sticking up in every direction.

Liz pulled herself together. “Stay back. You‟ll cut your feet.”

Zack scowled. “You‟ll cut your hands.”

“You‟re bleeding ,” Emily squeaked in distress.

Liz glanced down. Sure enough, a thin red line welled on her finger. She pressed on it hastily, offering her daughter a shaky

smile. “It‟s okay. I‟m okay. It doesn‟t hurt.”

Emily frowned, unconvinced. “But . . .”

“You heard her, she‟s fine.” Zack poked his sister‟s shoulder. “Come on, let‟s get out of here so she can clean up.”

Em tipped up her face. “Will you take me to the beach?”

“No, but I‟ll buy you ice cream.” Zack‟s gaze, deep black rimmed with gold, met Liz‟s. Were his pupils a little too dilated?

But he‟d just woken up, she reminded herself.

“You want a broom?” he asked.

This was the boy she remembered, thoughtful, responsible, compassionate. Like Ben.

She swallowed, cradling the broken doves in her lap. “No, you go. I‟ll get it.”

He nodded once, his shaggy dark hair flopping over his forehead. With his face free from powder and fresh from sleep, he

could have been any average teenage boy stumbling out of bed.

Assuming the average teenage boy would be caught dead wearing black nail polish.

“There‟s money in my purse,” Liz said. “For the ice cream.”

Zack‟s mouth flattened. Did he remember the last bitter fight they‟d had before leaving North Carolina, when she‟d

accused him of taking money from her purse to buy drugs?

Of course he did. Zack—sensitive, observant, intelligent—remembered everything.

A fresh start, she reminded herself. For all of them.

She held his gaze.

“Sweet,” he said at last. “Thanks.”

Liz expelled a shaky breath.

They would be all right, she thought as she listened to the front door click shut behind them. The sound of their footsteps

thumped down the steps and faded away. Everything was going to be all right.

In time.

She regarded the fractured crystal in her hands, the furled and frozen wings, the fault line running through its pedestal like

a bolt of buried lightning, and a storm of grief shook her heart.

She closed her eyes. A tear oozed beneath her shut lids and rolled unchecked down her cheek.

Zack shot a glance at the girl behind the cash register. His age, maybe a year older. With girls sometimes it was hard to tell.

She was pretty, with purple eye shadow and a silver lip ring at the corner of her mouth. She was reading some thick book, but

as he approached, she closed the black-and-white cover and shoved it beside the register.